


waiting for dreams to match up

by fangirl_squee



Category: Psych (TV 2006)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:01:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24437863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fangirl_squee/pseuds/fangirl_squee
Summary: Shawn has proposed to Gus four and a half times.Gus would say thatyou can't count half a proposal as a time Shawn, you have to get all the way through, just thinking about it doesn't count as a proposal. Shawn, resolutely, disagrees.After all, he doesn't count the hundreds, possibly thousands, of times he’s thoughtI want to marry Burton Gusterin-between the times he's said it out loud, but Gus doesn't know that.
Relationships: Burton "Gus" Guster/Shawn Spencer
Comments: 32
Kudos: 241





	waiting for dreams to match up

**Author's Note:**

> Title from ‘Mushaboom’ by Feist

Shawn has proposed to Gus four and a half times.

Gus would say that  _ you can't count half a proposal as a time Shawn, you have to get all the way through, just thinking about it doesn't count as a proposal _ . Shawn, resolutely, disagrees.

After all, he doesn't count the hundreds, possibly thousands, of times he’s thought  _ I want to marry Burton Guster _ in-between the times he's said it out loud, but Gus doesn't know that.

  
  


1.

Shawn is seventeen and itching to leave home, backpack constantly half-packed and one foot out the door his whole senior year of high school. They don't talk about it, but Gus knows that when he leaves for college that Shawn isn't coming with him. They're best friends, and best friends know that kind of stuff, a secret language hidden in head tilts and half-finished sentences. 

Gus gets it, Shawn's never been comfortable in school, where he has to sit still for hours listening to someone cover material Gus knows Shawn memorised months ago, but still. The long Shawn-less future stretching out in front of him makes him feel even more anxious than waiting for college acceptance letters does.

Shawn sneaks over to Gus's house almost every night of those last few months in Santa Barbara. Sometimes Shawn comes home with Gus after school, hanging out later and later until Gus's mum gives in to letting Shawn sleep over. It's Shawn avoiding going home, sure, but it's more because he wants to spend time with Gus than it is about avoiding his dad.

Sometimes, Shawn sneaks in late at night, tapping on Gus's window until he wakes up, and then sneaking out in the morning. Shawn can sleep anywhere and would probably be fine just stealing one of Gus's pillows and passing out on the floor, but Gus is a light sleeper (or maybe this has made him a light sleeper), so when he hear the familiar soft squeak of the window he pulls the covers back and rolls over. The bed has always been cramped with the two of them, and it's only gotten more cramped every time one of them has another growth spurt. Gus is used to it now, used to the way Shawn arranges himself in his sleep, one hand under the pillow and the other curled into Gus's shirt.

They don't talk about that part of it. Gus doesn’t quite have the words for it. Instead, he perfects the art of opening his window quietly as Shawn shimmies through, the way to fit extra pop tarts in the toaster so his parents don't notice that he's sneaking Shawn breakfast.

They don't talk about the raging fights interspersed with stony silence of the Spencer household. They don't talk about the map of America Shawn has, pencil lines marking potential routes away from Santa Barbara. Away from Gus.

The night they graduate, they go to the beach instead of going home. Gus is sure his parents are going to be  _ furious _ , but Shawn keeps asking for just five more minutes and, well, he's always had a problem saying no to Shawn.

They end up staying until the sun starts to rise before Shawn agrees to go home. When he drops Gus off, Gus makes him promise to wait while he goes to get something inside.

He pushes the stack of postcards into Shawn's hands. He's been buying them for the past two years, picking up one or two every time he passed a newsstand or kiosk and he had the loose change.

"Now you  _ have _ to write to me," says Gus.

"I was always going to write to you," says Shawn.

Gus gives him a look.

"Okay," says Shawn, "but I would have  _ meant _ to write!"

He looks down at the postcards, flicking through them. Gus tried to pick ones Shawn would like - photos of wide open spaces, ones with neon cartoons and terrible puns. Shawn's hands are shaking a little, and Gus's are too, where he's nervously folded them across his chest. Maybe it's for the same reason, he can't be sure.

"Thanks Gus," says Shawn, his voice cracking.

Gus swallows around the lump in his throat. "No problem."

They don't hug goodbye. They never have before, and Gus is happy to pretend for a little longer that this is just another night, and that he'll see Shawn tomorrow. Gus doesn't go inside until the sound of Shawn's motorcycle has faded into the distance.

Mr Spencer calls that afternoon, and asks if Gus knows where Shawn is. There are two different truths he could give to that - that Shawn left and Gus assumed he was at home, which is the sort of answer Shawn would give and isn't  _ technically _ a lie, but is in enough of a grey area that it makes Gus squirm inside. He can see his mom out of the corner of his eye.

Instead, Gus thinks for a moment, and says the real truth instead. "I think he was going to Vegas first."

Mr Spencer is  _ not  _ happy, and asks a lot of follow up questions that Gus doesn't know the answer to (what route did he take? When did he leave? Why didn't you tell anyone?), before Gus's mom takes the phone back.

Two months later he gets a postcard from Las Vegas from Shawn with a photo of a chapel.

_ I'm saving your postcards for emergency gus transmissions. ps: we should definitely get married at this place, it's THE BEST!!!!!! _

There's no return address so Gus can't reply to that, and when Shawn finally calls he doesn't bring it up. It's probably for the best. Gus is half sure Shawn didn't mean it like that anyway.

He saves every postcard he gets from Shawn. He has two shoeboxes full of postcards, all carefully sorted into chronological order, a perfectly preserved timeline of Shawn's traveling years.

  
  


2.

After Gus finished an internship in LA, he gave himself two 'bonus' days before his flight to unwind before he headed back to college. Shawn finds out somehow, in that Shawn way of his, where Gus is staying, almost giving Gus a heart attack by tackle-hugging him the moment Gus enters the motel room.

“How did you even get  _ in _ ?” Gus manages to say.

“I told the concierge that we were married,” says Shawn.

“ _ What _ ?” says Gus, “Shawn-”

“Gus!” says Shawn, “Don’t be exactly one half of a blueberry pie!”

He still hasn’t let go of Gus’s shoulders, keeping them pulled into a close embrace, and he grins at Gus in the way he does when he’s getting away with something. With Shawn, you have to know when to pick your battles, and for some reason Gus doesn’t particularly feel like fighting this one. It’s not like he gets to see Shawn that often, at the moment.

Gus lets out a long breath. “I guess it’s only for a couple of days.”

“Yeah!” says Shawn, and launches into a long, overly-elaborate story about how they got married.

Gus settles back on the floor, interjecting every so often about colour schemes and their theoretical wedding playlist, watching Shawn’s hands twitch through the air as he talks.

  
  





It doesn't happen again for a long time, not until they're working together at Psych. Shawn's got them tangled up in something, as usual, heading them towards certain disaster and grinning the whole way there.

"It's not my fault Gus, it's the spirits! They led me here, I can't be responsible for how the spirits guide me."

"Well can the spirits figure out how to get out of here before the fire spreads to this room?"

Gus is firmly trying not to panic, because every fire safety video he's ever seen has said that that's the number one thing not to do when trapped in a burning building. It's kind of getting pretty hard to not do that, since he knows their only exit is sealed off and they're on the third floor, and no one knows where they are, and oh god, he's too young to die -

"Gus!" says Shawn, "give me a hand with this!"

Gus looks at the mattress that Shawn is trying to pull towards the window.

"What are you - No! No, Shawn!"

"Do you have a better plan?"

He doesn't, unfortunately.

Gus grabs Shawn's hand. Or maybe Shawn grabs Gus's hand. Or maybe they do it at the same time. Either way, it makes Gus feel better about jumping three stories onto an antique mattress. He still squeezes his eyes shut after they jump though.

Gus keeps his eyes shut even after they land, and doesn't open them until he hears Shawn's laugh. The mattress moves as Shawn sits up. There's a crash, and they turn to see the part of the house where they were just standing collapse in on itself.

"Oh my god," says Gus, "Oh my god, we could have  _ died _ ."

"Yeah, but we didn't," says Shawn.

"My life practically flashed before my eyes Shawn!"

"Gus don't be a half-inflated life preserver," says Shawn, "We survived! In fact, we might actually be invincible."

He's grinning, and Gus grins back. Gus feels a little bit invincible.

"Did your life  _ really _ flash in front of your eyes?" says Shawn, after a moment.

"No," says Gus, "Not really."

"I think mine did, sort of," says Shawn, "I saw the future."

"You saw the future," says Gus, flatly.

"Yeah, all sort of stuff - vacations, future cases," says Shawn, "what it would be like if we got married."

Gus turns to argue with Shawn, but as he does so Shawn he can see that Shawn's holding his arm at an awkward angle. Gus's instincts switch from 'argue over [insert topic here] with Shawn' to 'get Shawn to a hospital'.

"I think I fell on it," says Shawn, holding out his arm.

His wrist is bent at a weird angle, and it makes Gus wince just to look at it. He swears softly, his hands fluttering over Shawn’s wrist, trying to remember the instructions from his most recent first aid course. In the distance, Gus can hear sirens. 

“Do you ever think about the future like that Gus?”

“Sure,” says Gus, still trying to mentally picture the diagram of a wrist brace and make one with his singed jacket.

“Cool,” says Shawn. He pauses. “Hey Gus. Don’t freak out but I think I might have a concussion too.”

Gus does freak out, because someone’s got to, enough that they let him ride in the back of the ambulance with Shawn.

“We’re getting married,” Shawn tells one of the EMT’s, his voice hazy.

Gus too worried to argue, focusing on keeping a hold of Shawn’s hand for the whole bumpy ride there.

  
  


4.

Shawn is between places again so he's staying with Gus. Even though he's staying put in Santa Barbara, he changes apartments. Gus gets it, it's something to stop Shawn from feeling so restless, keeping his itchy feet at bay.

They've managed to have dinner at home for once, talking non-stop about nothing. Gus has always liked nights like these, the nights where no one he knows is in immediate danger, the nights where it’s just him and Shawn and a plate of jerk chicken, Top Gun playing behind their conversation.

“They should have gotten married,” says Shawn, gesturing to the screen. He pauses. “Hey, we should get married.”

Gus rolls his eyes. “Shawn-”

“ _ Gus _ !” says Shawn. “Why  _ not _ ?”

“Shawn…” says Gus again.

He turns to look at Shawn, blinking at Shawn’s serious expression. His  _ real _ serious expression, not his  _ trying-to-convince-someone-to-let-him-do-something-he-shouldn’t _ expression. He touches the back of Gus’s hand lightly before his hands flutter up and away.

“Come on,” says Shawn, “why not?”

“We basically already get all the tax benefits,” says Gus.

“So?”

“You’ve never said you wanted to get married in a serious way,” says Gus.

“I have so in a serious way,” says Shawn.

“And we’re not in love,” says Gus, “that’s kind of an important one.”

Shawn pauses. “Aren’t we?”

His fingertips touch Gus’s hand again, warm and a little sticky because he always refuses to use a napkin properly until right at the end of the meal. It drives Gus nuts, always has, just like most of what Shawn does, filling his head with thoughts of Shawn until they trickle down into his chest, and-

Oh.

He looks up at Shawn, meeting his eyes. They’re close to his, moving closer as the two of them lean towards one another, their lips meeting for the briefest moment before Shawn leans back.

Shawn smiles. It’s quieter than his usual grin, softer, reminding Gus of sleepovers and phone calls and a shoebox full of postcards.

“Is this a yes?” says Shawn.

“I’m not getting engaged after our first  _ date _ ,” says Gus.

“So this  _ is _ a date!” says Shawn.

“ _ Now _ it is,” says Gus, falling into the rhythm of bickering with Shawn as they lean together on the couch, their fingers intertwined.

  
  


and a half:

Gus looks over at Shawn, at the way to morning light catches on Shawn's eyelashes while he eats sugary cereal in an incredible unromantic way, and Gus thinks he'd like to do this forever.

"Okay."

"Okay?" says Shawn, through a mouthful of cereal, "Okay, what?"

Gus raises an eyebrow.

" _ Oh _ ," says Shawn, swallowing quickly. "Really?"

Gus grins. "Yeah."

Shawn’s smile gets wider slowly, until he’s beaming at Gus from across the table. It reminds Gus of the sunrise.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi: mariusperkins on most places


End file.
